Resolution indpendence

Nicolas Mailhot nicolas.mailhot at laposte.net
Mon Jun 30 12:53:29 PDT 2008


Le lundi 30 juin 2008 à 21:03 +0300, Daniel Stone a écrit :
> On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 06:21:22PM +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> alue)
> > 
> > So "the thing you need to change for documents" is document-specific.
> 
> No, because everyone except desktop publishers deals in a standard,
> well-understood set of point sizes, 

Urban legend (like the "well understood" mess US computers guys made of
SI units). Everyone but hardcore computer nerds deals with standard
units of points, and the hardware computer guys pretend they're the same
thing as pixel sizes to avoid taking into account bitmap fonts are going
away.

> which they expect to translate at about 96dpi,

Which computer programmers trained with bitmap fonts expect to translate
at about 96dpi so they can use old receipes on new hardware

>  instead of maybe reallyreallytiny or LUDICROUSLY BIG.

which incidently is what's has been happening for almost a decade with
the 96dpi rule. Bad software forces users to artificially limit the
settings at which they use their screens to avoid reallyreallytiny or
LUDICROUSLY BIG text in apps that force 96dpi regardless of the actual
hardware capabilities.

> One use case involves people who just want to use their
> computer and have it behave as they expect.

ie a nytrogen-preserved 1998-era screen

> The other involve people
> who get very upset when their computer behaves in a manner that's not
> completely in accordance with certain rigid principles.

Which is not what they expect?


> Look, I'm happy that you care about this stuff.  Really, because we need
> more people to tell us that we're screwing up and going wrong.  But
> please trust me that real people don't feel that way.

I love how many different ways I've been qualified in this thread. Do
you really have no better argument that "you don't exist?"

> They see 'size 12' (something readable), rather than '12pt' 
> (however many inches).

They see size 12 pt which has actual meaning for anyone with a printer
or who reads books

> Nothing that exists today works at all with high-density displays -- the
> Nokia tablets still just always smash the DPI to 96 or so, because

because bad software assumes 96dpi, and breaks otherwise.

The rest are just excuses. Surprisingly, when an app actually tries to
work with variable resolution hardware (aka real world hardware), it
works surprisingly well.

> surprisingly you have NO ROOM ON YOUR SCREEN AT 220DPI BECAUSE
> EVERYTHING IS REALLY BIG AND JUST IMAGINE THIS BIT IS TAKING UP THIRTEEN
> LINES RATHER THAN JUST BEING IN CAPS.  It's ridiculous.

What's ridiculous is to say there is not problem, because there are no
solutions, and there are no solutions , because there is not problem, so
it's not worth even considering them.

Get your head out of the sandbar.

-- 
Nicolas Mailhot
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